But it applied to at least four other ālame ducks,ā Mr. Dead Justice. What makes the current President so special?
I look forward to the next installment in which Scalia explains that if a lame duck president wants to appoint a Supreme Court justice he should convince Congress to pass a law explicitly granting him the right to do so.
Heād probably suggest that we consult with corporations about their religious beliefs concerning the nomination of Supreme Court justices by a lame duck president since those are more important than the opinions of legal scholars or the human citizens of the country.
Way to set that comic strip character straight!
Heās dead now. He canāt hurt you any more.
Itās appalling to read McConnell talking about ārespectingā the will of the votersā¦who havenāt voted yet for the next presidentā¦those same voters who did elect someone to make these decisions. Not only does it play into the continued belief that he and his party work mostly out of spite and fear, it also furthers the view (nationally and internationally) that the US canāt get itās political shit together, and maybe thatās a good thing considering the vast majority of sabre-rattling and xenophobia emanating from our most recent politics. A shameful, vicious cycle that doesnāt bode well.
When Idiocracy has become immediate family, rather than the distant, barred, and ridiculed neighbor, yeah that aināt good.
Oh, if only dead Supreme Court Justices lost their ability to hurt the livingā¦ weāre still getting smacked around by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and John Hessin Clarke a hundred years after their decisions.
Iām wondering . . . if Obama makes a public statement that he will simply refuse to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. . . does that mean the GOP can move to impeach him because he is shirking his Constitutional duties?
It would certainly put them in an interesting position: they might have legal grounds to impeach, but then it would expose their own hypocrisy and intransigence.
They will accept his refusal and move to impeach. Republican voters will not notice the hypocrisy or will justify it away, and everybody else already knows.
Scalia isnāt dead, heās doing gigs with B movies nowadays.
Thatās nothing, youāre still getting smacked around in places by Saul of Tarsus and the authors of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, after nearly 2000 years. It sometimes amazes me we came down from the trees (āJustice Ugg say founding fathers would have wanted a brachiation-only society based on strict construction of orally passed down grunting by Continental Congress of Lemursā)
You had a couple of grammatical mistakes there.
@kupfernigk, yeah, youāve got a point there. The ghosts of the Supreme Court are relative newcomers with a large backing choir.
Honestly, not arguing with the premise of this cartoon at all, but:
Itās not funny. The punchline is that Scalia is going to be told what-for by the original framers of the constitution? That part was so heavy-handed and unfunny it reminded me of the Onion political cartoons with the cartoonist who labels everything and self-inserts.
Iām confused. Is Scalia in heaven, or some weird filtered lens world ala Yoda, Kenobi, and their crew? This afterlife really needs to be clarified.
And if the Founding Fathers ever showed up to explain anything to me, Iād tell 'emā¦āYāknow, that whole keeping slavery legal and counting black people as 3/4 a person to be represented by their mastersā¦it didnāt work out so great, Jimmy. And donāt get me started on the Electoral College and the two-party monopoly. Please leave before I call an exorcist.ā
Well, I guess Iām hoping there will be some Republicans frustrated/angry that the GOP would impeach a President for NOT doing the very thing they donāt want him to do in the first place. Itās part of the whole āwasting taxpayer dollarsā logic.
I think part of the problem is also that McConnell and the Senate Republicans have no respect for Reid and the Senate Democrats. They know the Democrats are āreasonableā and ārespectful of Senate traditionā (ie, pussies). They know that, if the situation were reversed, no Democrat would pull this stunt. They know that, if they do pull this stunt, and they themselves face a similar situation in the future [lame duck GOP President in his final year, a Democrat-majority Senate], theyāll face no retaliation (ie, the Democrats would be āreasonableā and actually vote on a SCOTUS nominee).
These Senators canāt be impeached for this. Their electorate will reward them for this. Thereās just no downside to this betrayal of the constitution.
Unless Reid actually had balls and made it clear to them that this would be War. They might get away with it, but it will be War from here on out. And, should the Democrats ever get power again, they wonāt forget the stunt, theyāll do everything in their power, including abolishing the filibuster, including using the ānuclear optionā in approving nominees. Reid has some power. He just never uses it. Democrats should, at long last, stop being āreasonable.ā
Didnāt they already do that in 2013?
And the Democrats arenāt innocent of being obstructive when the tables have been reversed. As far as SCOTUS nominations go, they have at least considered individual nominees, although they were never going to pass Bork.
I donāt like what Iām seeing about Obama proposing Sandoval,though.
Iād rather see a proper liberal proposed, and when that nominee gets rejected, put them up again in the senate after the election.
Dishonestly, I completely agree.
To echo what @daneel said above, not only have the Dems played some tomfoolery in the past with nominations (although nothing like this), but I think that gets us back to Hammurabiās Code and/or scorched earth policy where everything grinds to an absolute halt and (again) the 99% suffers. I donāt know what the Dems do about this, even though I consider it an absolute affront to the Presidency and the Court as well.
Bork is continually raised as an example of āDemocrats do it tooā, but itās a false equivalence.
There is a massive difference between refusing to confirm an exceptionally bad candidate (which Bork absolutely was) and refusing to confirm candidates regardless of quality.
The first is the Senate fulfilling its constitutional duty; the second is the Senate abandoning its constitutional duty.
I didnāt say that was an equivalent case. Just that the Democrats have also obatructed appointments. And yes, I think thereās a massive difference between assessing and then rejecting a candidate and a blanket refusal to even consider anyone. The Republican Senators are definitely completely in the wrong here.
Some of these seem a little less than justified too, though:
